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Rev. O’Brian:

It isn’t even necessary to have all thought subside. It is nice when

that happens, but it doesn’t always happen and that doesn’t mean meditation can’t

proceed. You begin to create distance by not identifying yourself with thought.

That is a powerful awareness for a meditator.

Sally Kempton:

The ripples that go on in the mind are often what we could call

proto thoughts, not formed thoughts, but simply movements. Like the ripples

in water. Water in the ocean is never exactly still. There are always currents and

little wavelets. The ultimate secret of working with the mind is to recognize,

using the ocean metaphor again, that inside all the waves is water. If you can

realize that whatever the mind is doing—whatever charged thoughts, anxieties,

or desires that seem so compelling—the entire experience on the mental level of

your being, and ultimately on every level of being, is made of energy. Made of

consciousness. You begin to look not at the waves, the thoughts or the emotions,

but what they are made of, which is water, which is mind stuff, and that recogni-

tion shifts your meditation forever. Somehow in that moment as the energy is

recognized, it begins to take rest in itself. It becomes still.

Rev. O’Brian:

Beginning to occupy a larger space opens us to deeper experience.

I watch for that moment when concentration shifts by itself into meditation. In

my experience, it has to do with the arising of grace. It is nothing I make happen,

but it is observable. You can experience it. You can see it, however you perceive it.

Sally Kempton:

The grace factor is the secret in meditation. You’re focusing,

focusing, focusing and then suddenly you are taken as the wind comes. Built into

the process, is the moment of grace.

Sally Kempton studied and traveled with Swami Muktananda from 1974 until his passing in 1982,

editing many of his books, and receiving training in the texts of Vedanta Yoga and the tradition of

Kashmir Shaivism. She teaches internationally and writes a regular column in Yoga Journal. Her

newest book is Meditation for the Love of It: Enjoying Your Own Deepest Experience.

www.SallyKempton.com.

To hear this conversation in its entirety,

log on to: www.unity.fm/program/theYogaHour